This level of autonomy means that the R1 isn’t just hands-off, it’s mind-off. You can control it manually if you really want to (and it’ll help keep you from smashing into things), but it’s designed to be launched and forgotten about—Skydio expects that you’ll learn to trust the drone’s autonomy enough that you can let it loose and then more or less ignore it for the next 16-ish minutes while it films you doing whatever it is you do. I’m not sure that’s something that can be said about any other consumer drone. And then the R1 lands itself, and you have amazing footage, since the drone can capture a variety of different kinds of cinematic video: It can follow you, orbit you, film you from one side or the other, track the action from high above, or even do its best to stay in front of you as you’re moving, which is a neat trick.